The Information Governance team support all Unity Schools Partnership schools and Unity Schools Partnership Education services with all matters relating to data protection, GDPR and Freedom of Information.  

We hope this webpage answers all of your questions, but if you would like to contact our Information Governance team, please see ‘data protection enquiries and complaints’ below.  

Unity Schools Partnership Multi-Academy Trust and Unity Schools Partnership Education services are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the registered Data Protection Officer (DPO) is Mr M Vaughan. To contact our DPO, please email dpo@unityspc.co.uk 

Our key Information Governance policies can be accessed by clicking the links below. For all other policies, please see the USP Policies page. 

• Data Protection Policy
• Records Retention and Destruction Policy
• Subject Access Request Policy
• Freedom of Information Policy
• Pupil privacy notice
• Parent/guardian privacy notice
• Staff privacy notice
• Third party data request policy

Under the GDPR, everyone has specific rights over their own data which apply in different circumstances. 
These rights are:

• The right to be informed
• The right of access
• The right to rectification
• The right to erasure
• The right to restrict processing
• The right to data portability
• The right to object
• Rights related to automated decision making and profiling.

Parents/Guardians can support their child by exercising these rights on their behalf but may need to provide evidence of Parental Responsibility (PR) or that the child has authorised them to do so. 

More information about individual rights and where they are applicable can be found on the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

The right of access means that everyone who interacts with an organisation has the right to request access to their personal data. This includes employees, pupils, families and any other individual whose data is processed by the organisation.  

For more information about how you can do this, what the process is like and any limitations which may apply in specific circumstances, please go to our Personal Data Request page.

The Freedom of Information Act means that anyone can ask for a lot of different types of information public bodies – such as schools and the Trust – for the purposes of transparency and accountability. This includes information such as statistics and data, operational and procedural information and policies.  

The Freedom of Information Act is not related to requests for personal information – for this, please see ‘Requesting access to personal data’ above.  

For more information about how you can make a FOI request, what the process is like and limitations which may apply in specific circumstances, please go to our Freedom of Information page.

If you have any queries relating to any information on this website, within our policies or any other general queries, please email infogov@unitysp.co.uk.  

If you would like to make a complaint in relation to information governance, for example, if you are unhappy with how a data request has been handled, please contact dpo@unitysp.co.uk.  

You also have the right to make a complaint directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). More information on how to do this can be found on the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

Occasionally, the Trust may receive requests for information about a pupil, family member or member of staff by a third-party organisation, for example, the police or social services. The GDPR does not prevent the Trust from sharing personal data with third parties, where there is a legal basis to do so.  

For more information about third party data requests, see our Third Party Requests for Data Policy or go to our Personal Data Request page.

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